Freedom of Space

Not many of you, I suppose, can imagine the time before the satellite

relays gave us our present world communications system. When I was a

boy, it was impossible to send TV programs across the ocean, or even to

establish reliable radio contact around the curve of the Earth without

picking up a fine assortment of crackles and bangs on the way. Yet now

we take interference-free circuits for granted, and think nothing of

seeing our friends on the other side of the globe as clearly as if we

were standing face to face. Indeed, it's a simple fact that without

the satellite relays, the whole structure of world commerce and

industry would collapse. Unless we were up here on the space stations

to bounce their messages around the globe, how do you think any of the

world's big business organisations could keep their widely scattered

electronic brains in touch with each other?

But all this was still in the future, back in the late seventies, when

we were finishing work on the Relay Chain. I've already told you about

some of our problems and near disasters; they were serious enough at

the time, but in the end we overcame them all. The three stations

spaced around Earth were no longer piles of girders, air cylinders, and

plastic pressure chambers. Their assembly had been completed, we had

moved aboard, and could now work in comfort, unhampered by space suits.

And we had gravity again, now that the stations had been set slowly

spinning. Not real gravity, of course; but centrifugal force feels

exactly the same when you're out in space. It was pleasant being able

to pour drinks and to sit down without drifting away on the first air

current.

Once the three stations had been built, there was still a year's solid

work to be done installing all the radio and TV equipment that would

lift the world's communications networks into space. It was a great

day when we established the first TV link between England and

Australia. The signal was beamed up to us in Relay Two, as we sat

above the center of Africa, we flashed it across to Three poised over

New Guinea and they shot it down to Earth again, clear and clean after

its ninety-thousand-mile journey.

These, however, were the engineers' private tests. The official

opening of the system would be the biggest event in the history of

world communication an elaborate global telecast, in which every nation

would take part. It would be a three-hour show, as for the first time

the live TV camera roamed around the world, proclaiming to mankind that

the last barrier of distance was down.

The program planning, it was cynically believed, had taken as much

effort as the building of the space stations in the first place, and of

all the problems the planners had to solve, the most difficult was that

of choosing a compare or master of ceremonies to introduce the items in

the elaborate global show that would be watched by half the human

race.

Heaven knows how much conniving, blackmail, and downright character

assassination went on behind the scenes. All we knew was that a week

before the great day, a nonscheduled rocket came up to orbit with

Gregory Wendell aboard. This was quite a surprise, since Gregory

wasn't as big a TV personality as, say, Jeffers Jackson in the U.S. or

Vince Clifford in Britain. However, it seemed that the big boys had

canceled each other out, and Gregg had got the coveted job through one

of those compromises so well known to politicians.

Gregg had started his career as a disc jockey on a university radio

station in the American Midwest, and had worked his way up through the

Hollywood and Manhattan night club circuits until he had a daily,

nation-wide program of his own. Apart from his cynical yet relaxed

personality, his biggest asset was his deep velvet voice, for which he

could probably thank his Negro blood. Even when you flatly disagreed

with what he was saying even, indeed, when he was tearing you to pieces

in an interview it was still a pleasure to listen to him.

We gave him the grand tour of the space station, and even (strictly

against regulations) took him out through the air lock in a space suit.

He loved it all, but there were two things he liked in particular.

"This air you make," he said, "it beats the stuff eve to breathe down

in New York. This is the first time my sinus trouble has gone since I

went into TV." He also relished the low gravity; at the station's rim,

a man had half his normal, Earth weight and at the axis he had no

weight at all.

However, the novelty of his sww~di~ didn't distract Gregg from his job.

He spent hours at Communications Central, polishing his script and

getting his cues right, and studying the dozens of monitor screens that

would be his windows on the world. I came across him once while he was

running through his introduction of Queen Elizabeth, who would be

speaking from Buckingham Palace at the very end of the program. He was

so intent on his rehearsal that he never even noticed I was standing

beside him.

Well, that telecast is now part of history. For the first time a

billion human beings watched a single program that came "Eve" from

every corner of the Earth, and was a roll call of the world's greatest

citizens. Hundreds of cameras on land and sea and air looked

inquiringly at the turning globe; and at the end there was that

wonderful shot of the Earth through a zoom lens on the space station,

making the whole planet recede until it was lost among the stars....

There were a few hitches, of course. One camera on the bed of the

Atlantic wasn't ready on cue, and we had to spend some extra time

looking at the Taj Mahal. And owing to a switching error Russian

subtitles were superimposed on the South American transmissions, while

half the USSR.

found itself trying to read Spanish. But this was nothing to what

might have happened.

Through the entire three hours, introducing the famous and the unknown

with equal ease, came the mellow yet never orotund flow of Gregg's

voice. He did a magnificent job; the congratulations came pouring up

the beam the moment the broadcast finished.

But he didn't hear them; he made one short, private call to his agent,

and then went to bed.

Next morning, the Earth-bound ferry was waiting to take him back to any

job he cared to accept.

But it left without Gregg Wendell, now junior station announcer of

Relay Two.

"They'll think I'm crazy," he said, beaming happily, "but why should I

go back to that rat race down there? I've all the universe to look at,

I can breathe smog-free air, the low gravity makes me feel a Hercules,

and my three darling ex wives can't get at me." He kissed his hand to

the departing rocket.

"So long, Earth," he called.

"I'll be back when I start pining for Broadway traffic jams and bleary

penthouse dawns. And if I get homesick, I can look at anywhere on the

planet just by turning a switch. Why, I'm more in the middle of things

here than I could ever be on Earth, yet I can cut myself off from the

human race whenever I want to."

He was still smiling as he watched the ferry begin the long fall back

to Earth, toward the fame and fortune that could have been his. And

then, whistling cheerfully, he left the observation lounge in

eight-foot strides to read the weather forecast for Lower Patagonia.